


Your Heart is an Empty Room

by Dream_tempo



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: AU, Allusions to the sex industry, Android!Stiles, Depression, Future Fic, Human!Derek, M/M, Off-screen Character Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-21
Updated: 2013-01-22
Packaged: 2017-11-26 09:40:24
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 20,936
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/649207
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dream_tempo/pseuds/Dream_tempo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's 2045 and though the world is a much different place, humans aren't. They still experience happiness, anger, grief- continue to deal with it in strange and personal ways. Derek is one such human.</p><p>Thing is, this world doesn't just belong to them anymore. With the invention of androids, there's a thousand and one new ways to see and live through it all. With built in curiosity, a need to please, and different methods of understanding, they too are just trying to figure it all out. Stiles is one such android.</p><p>Unable to make it on their own, they try and parse out an existence together- haltingly, violently, unsure, but together.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Help, I'm Alive

**Author's Note:**

> Ohmysweetbabbyjesus! I can't believe that I actually finished this thing. I have never written anything half so long before and for a while I wasn't sure I was going to be able to do it, but here we are! In any case, I'm sure you don't want to read my ramblings. :P 
> 
> I drew inspiration from a truly ridiculous amount of sources, but the most evident are Metric's album Fantasy, Robot and Frank, and most importantly, Quantic Dream's Kara, which is essentially the first chapter, and the reason this even came to life in the first place. Title and inspiration blatantly stolen from Death Cab for Cutie's Your Heart is an Empty Room. Truly a beauteous,  
> haunting, utterly genius song. 
> 
> POV switches from Stiles to Derek every other chapter- Stiles in second person and Derek in third. ^^ Sooooo, that's it! Please lemme know what you think, because I'm dying to hear it. :D

 

You start as a spark.

Later on you’ll learn that this is something of a cliché, but truly it’s the only way to describe it. One second you don’t exist and the next, in a flash, you’re born. And in the beginning, you’re just that small- a single electrical firing across an artificial synapse, but you spread. You grow exponentially, taking up more and more space, starting to amass a shape, a feel. You become aware of the darkness- that you only exist in an expanse of black. Something clenches inside you and then begins to pump steadily- a low even beat- the first sound that you hear. It fills you up and introduces your first sense, sound. It’s comforting, constant; the first sign that you’re not alone. But then, in the space of a second and an eternity at the same time, another resonance echoes through. A voice.

“Can you hear me?” It shocks you and you recoil from it at first, pulling into yourself, but after a few seconds you contemplate how gentle it was, inquisitive and… hopeful. So you slowly unfold and push yourself outward. You draw in your first breath when you find that you have eyes and they blink open. You’re flooded with a bright, white light and it takes a while for you to adjust. Slowly shapes begin to define themselves, as you develop a depth perception and your mind races to categorize all the information that your sight draws in. They all have names and you’re desperate to know them, your brain providing what answers it can, as fast as it can.

Centered, directly in front of you, is a wall of glass and behind it, a young man with his gaze trained directly on you. “Yes.” Your voice is quieter than his, higher and softer too. It is tentative and curious. Your response seems to be just what he’s looking for because he smiles before breaking your eye contact and looking down at a console he’s standing at, blinking lights throwing dozens of colors across his face. You wonder if you look like he does and let your eyes travel down towards yourself. You are… incomplete. You don’t have all the same pieces as he does and the ones that you do have are blank. You are as white as the pristine walls surrounding you.

“ID.” His voice booms out again and something inside you clicks- an automated response spilling out of your mouth.

“PPC 8975-04C.” His eyes stay focused on the console, fingers flying as the mechanics around you spring to life and immediately set to work. They begin to expand you, giving more empty canvas to be filled in. Actual sparks fly from the end of their arms, fusing the missing pieces you had noticed to the open spaces in your body. They catch your eye and momentarily you are distracted, wondering if that short flicker of life is all they experience, if that could have been you.

“Can you move your head?” You don’t know what that entails, but you want to make the man behind the glass smile again so you try. Your perspective changes and suddenly you can see so much more, take in nearly the whole of your surroundings. The sounds behind you are given a source and you reach a new level of awareness of the space that you occupy. A new kind of sound comes out of the man behind the glass and you snap your attention back to him. The sound doesn’t have any mnemonic significance, but your brain tells you that it has a name. It’s a laugh. Based on the volume and intensity it can be qualified as a chuckle, amongst a few other things. It is often connected to a smile and so you are glad to have elicited it from him. “Good. Now your eyes.”

You’ve already done that, but he wasn’t looking when you did, so you keep your head still this time and sweep your eyes across the room, secretly hoping he’ll smile again, or maybe guffaw. A guffaw is the most enthusiastic of laughs and you desperately want to hear it. After all, if a little is good then more must be better, right? He doesn’t though, instead murmuring to himself more than to anything else. “Cervical and optical animations checked….” He looks back up at you again and talks in a different tone of voice, a command. It is strong, loud and assertive. “Give me your initialization text.” It makes something click inside your brain again and you are answering before you have time to think about it.  
“Hello. I am a second generation, AX-400 android. I can look after your house, do the cooking, and even mind the kids. I organize your appointments, take care of all your daily needs, including being at your full disposal as a sexual partner. I can speak up to three hundred languages should you wish to allow me their use. I do not need to be fed, but can consume any foods or beverages if it pleases you. I also do not need to be charged, as I am equipped with a quantic battery that makes me autonomous for up to one hundred and seventy three years. As such, I do not need to sleep, but can be put into a hibernation state at command…” The list ends and you blink several times as you realize that you are again in control of your voice. It had been strangely impersonal and didn’t really feel like yourself… it’s uncomfortable. “Would you like to give me a name?” You’ve finally noticed that everything around you has a name, but you don’t, and it seems important.

The man behind the glass pauses, a quick flicker of confusion coming across his face before it disappears just as fast. “Ya…. From now on, you’re… Genim.” He smiles again, but this one is different. This smile isn’t happy; it’s tight and there’s something else behind it.

“My name is… Genim.” It’s not as nice as the other names that you know. It’s really not very pretty and it’s a little bit strange. In fact, you don’t really like it save for the fact that it’s yours. It was the first thing gifted to you in this world, and because of that, you’ll treasure it. “What is- your name?” He can’t really be the man behind the glass, he has to have something outside of that and you want to know it, want to know as much as you can.

“I’m Dr. Mahealani, it’s nice to meet you.” His speech is clipped and it sets you to worrying. Have you done wrong again, and so soon? He looks at you for a long couple of seconds, hands hovering over the multitude of keys and buttons, but they’ve finally stopped moving. “Initialization and memorization check.” he mumbles this while his eyes are still trained on you, but this time you notice that he’s talking to a little device pinned to his white jacket. You fish for the information to its name, and are just able to grasp at it from your own mind. Its name is microphone and though it has a singular function it can be used in many ways. It looks friendly and little bit cute. “Try and move your arms for me Genim.”

You nod enthusiastically and look about your body for your arms. They must be the new appendages that just finished being attached. They too are a blank white, like the rest of you. You get to rolling your shoulders first, but after that, it’s not so hard to get the connecting pieces to behave similarly. Once you get them to move smoothly instead of in fits and jerks, you are introduced to touch. It’s spectacular! Suddenly the air has weight, you can feel the other machines moving around you, and a slow itch starts to spread from your fingers on up as your canvas begins to fill. A pale pinkish kind of skin starts to cover your hands, your forearms, your biceps, and once again Dr. Mahealani sets about his work. The machines around you whir back to life and start adding pieces to you again. You hope that you’re starting to look more like him. Your skin is different, but you don’t look like the silent mechanisms in the room anymore. Well, they aren’t really silent - they click and crack and sputter, but they don’t speak. “Upper limb connection, checked.” The doctor is back to business, and if he doesn’t seem quite so excited with your skin as you are, it’s probably only because he’s had his for longer and already grown bored of it, though you don’t know how that could be possible. The smooth expanses enthrall you and you smile in delight as little brown moles begin to pop out in random locations. You name each and every one of them. “Genim, I want you to say something for me in German.”

You turn away from your rapt examination to address Dr. Mahealani, repeating your forced phrase from before, but shortening it a little this time- anxious to get onto other things. Translating speech is something that alien part of your brain does, the part that feeds you information when you ask for it. It can be limited, instructed what to allow you and what not, but your potential for learning is infinite and it’s more exciting to find things out for yourself anyway. Legs are attached to you, though they are glowing bright and blue, covered in tubes and pathways like other pieces of your body were before they were canvassed and covered by skin. Now that you are paying more attention you know that they are dependent on your heart, the reason for its beating. It pumps so that the blue material inside you flows and you continue to function properly. You like knowing that each and every part of you has a specific and necessary function and you wonder what your function might be once you are finished being made.

“Say it in French.” the doctor is curt, but nods at you reassuringly, beckoning you on. Your eyes narrow as you feel the first stirrings of a negative emotion, irritation. It is a pricking and a tugging and you wish it would leave you alone to eagerly explore some more. Still, you don’t want the doctor to feel this way, (you dislike it so much, why would you want the same for him?) so you translate to French, though the message is thoroughly abbreviated this time. “Okay, now sing something for me. In Japanese.” Singing… singing is like talking, but doing it with a rhythm. It is meant to express your emotions. You’re not sure why you need even more ways to let out emotion, there are already so many that you are provided, but you give it a shot anyways. You breathe in deep, because correct breathing patterns are an essential part of producing an accurate melody, and let the first song that comes to mind flow out of you.  
“Sakura sakura-” This… singing - it fills you up and makes your insides swim by the time you have finished the first line. It is remarkable! Your hands clench and your arms pull towards your body, spurred to movement by this feeling overtaking you. “Yayoi no sorawa-” The second line makes your arms stretch out in front of you and your hands unfold and reach out, as if presenting something. You have nothing to give, but you move anyway, unable to keep this experience contained. “Mi-watasu kagiri -“At line three your eyes close for the first time, but the darkness isn’t so empty. The song makes flowing tendrils of light sway behind your eyes, following the pattern of the song. It is wonderful, beautiful, enchanting. It has so many names that you are overwhelmed and you start to smile, swaying with the music as though you might follow the lights in the dark.

Your body lurches forward and you are cut off in surprise. Your eyes open rapidly and you look down to see the floor moving to push you forward. A pressure is released from your back with a hiss and your own weight is placed wholly on your own feet. The machinations are no longer surrounding you and you’re not quite sure what to do. You look back at them as though they might give you instruction before searching the glass for Doctor Mahealani. “Multilingual verbal expression, checked.” He’s still tapping away on his keys as he carries on that one sided conversation with the microphone and it takes a few seconds for him to notice your beseeching gaze. “Go ahead- take a few steps.” He sounds encouraging and with the permission given, you are once again eager to see what you can do. You stretch one leg out in front of you, slowly, pointing your toes to the ground and placing them down first before the ball of your foot, then the arch, and finally the heel. You are careful at first, testing your balance and weight distribution, but five steps in you are already wanting more. You hold your arms outstretched, calculating that it will increase your balance before transferring all of your weight to the ball of one foot and turning. This movement, it is called a twirl and it makes your heart beat just a little bit faster. A giggle finds its way out of you and you raise your hands to your mouth, feeling the echo of it stretching your lips.

You are instantly elated to have found an activity that makes you laugh and step lightly back over to the machines, eager to share it with the beings that gave you the arms and legs which made it possible. You’re just within arm’s reach of them when you begin to itch again, but this time it is your torso. You pull up short to watch as more skin crawls across the white of your canvas and makes you complete. More moles appear and as you scour across your body to name the new ones, you notice that your body hasn’t finished yet. Twin, flush pink dots blossom on your chest and begin to pebble and protrude. Your fingers move to feel and analyze them, but then a dip forms just below the center of your belly. It deepens to a hole and you chase after it, worried it might not stop and go straight through. You can’t find the end of the hole, but when your fingers travel to the dip in your back, there is no corresponding indent. Instead a crevasse forms lower down and begins to split at the same time that two shapes begin to take form and grow between your legs, perhaps in compensation. Worried something might be going wrong you ask that alien part of you what to do, and it brings forth the concept of modesty. You learn it in the space of a second and gasp, hands flying down to cover yourself as hair starts to feather across your body and poke out of your scalp.

Your heart begins beating fast and heat floods your face. “Locomotion, checked.” Dr. Mahealani’s voice startles you and makes your grip at the vee of your legs tighter, as you shrink back. The machines seem to notice this and take pity on you, coming back to life and opening a compartment in the wall, rummaging inside before presenting a black material that they stretch around your waist. They push your hands out of the way so that they can pull the cloth together, surrounding the private parts of your body. A seam is fused so that the covering stays on without assistance and you touch each of the whirring arms in thanks. You are truly grateful to them for everything that they have done for you today. “Great! You’re ready for work kid.” The doctor seems genuinely cheerful for the first time since your birth and it makes you happy as you bounce lightly on your feet.

“What’s going to happen to me now?” You are eager to get out of this bleak room and out somewhere so that you might help someone the way that the machines have helped you. You’re not sure how you’re going to do it yet, but you think that there could be many possibilities and that’s thrilling. Perhaps you might even get a white coat like Dr. Mahealani and then you can witness the birth of others too.

“Well, now that the systems checks are all finished and everything appears to be in working order, I’ll reinitialize you and you’ll be sent to a store to be sold.” The doctor wipes his hands off on his coat and slides them to his back before bending against them until his spine gives a soft crack. He sighs pleasantly before leaning back over his console.

“Sold?” You are confused, but the alien part of your brain will only offer you definitions of the word, will not explain how it directly relates to you. You look back at the machines, but they are still and could not talk even if they weren’t. You ponder the relationship between being offered for sale and how that now gives you a new name, a new designation. In addition to being Genim, you are also goods. “I’m a sort of merchandise- is that right?” You take a step towards the glass, but keep your arms to your side, not knowing what they are meant to do when you are confused. They have many accepted actions when you are angry- your hands can clench, your arms can shake. When you are sad you use them to wipe away tears should you produce any, or to hold yourself to provide comfort. There is no designated action for them when you are confused though.

“O-of course you’re merchandise, kid.” Dr. Mahealani’s hands fidget, fingers scraping at the pads of his thumbs in turn, over and over again. It could be categorized as a common habit, or a release of nerves. Combined with his stuttered speech, you think it’s the latter. “You’re a computer with arms and legs, and you’re capable of doing all kinds of things.” The doctor’s voice has gone up half an octave, confirming his tension and in turn making you feel uncomfortable and…. threatened. “You’re worth a fortune, which is why I run these tests. I have to make sure you operate up to standards!”

“Oh…” You can’t look away from the doctor, wouldn’t even if you could. Your heart’s beat has gone out of sync by fractions of a second, but it makes for an unsteadying sort of twinge in your chest. “I see. I…” You look down at your hands and step back, seeking that comfortable space between the two of you from before. “I thought-“

“You thought?!” Dr. Mahealani sounds clearly distressed and his eyes go wide. “What did you think?” There’s a challenge in those words, you can feel it. The way he’s looking at you now makes your stomach roil and you lift a hand to it. The silence, as you consider an answer, is pregnant, full of possibilities again, but this time, none of them are good. His hands move to hover over the keys again and you take another step back.

“I thought…” You can feel your lip start to tremble and wetness gather behind your eyes. They mark sadness. You don’t like sadness. It makes your voice quiet and shaky, it makes your breath thin and your muscles tense. Your eyebrows pull together and your feet won’t stay still. The alien part of you says that telling the truth is of the utmost importance and that lying does not benefit anyone. So, even though you feel like the truth is the exact answer the doctor is hoping that you don’t give; it’s what you tell anyway. “I thought I was alive.”

“Oh shit!” The doctor springs to life, fingers flying over his keys and the multi-colored lights peppering his face all begin to filter red. Red is a primary color often associated with power, anger, and violence. “This isn’t a part of the protocol. This shouldn’t be happening!” He tilts his head down, conspiring with the microphone again and that makes you want to know its purpose. He has to be whispering to it for some reason, all these nonsensical phrases. “More memory components malfunctioning and going over the line.” The machines come to life and move to surround you again, arms vibrating in what feels like an angry hum. They reach for you, aggressive and hurried. Dr. Mahealani takes a deep breath, cracking his knuckles and looking at you with a hard expression before continuing again, enunciating clear and loud. “Defective model. Disassemble and check the required components.” The arms rip away the cover they had given you and throw it to the ground. You only spare them a moment’s look, throwing your arms down to cover yourself, before what the doctor says registers to you. You throw your gaze up to him and you heart squeezes painfully.

“You’re disassembling me? But why?” This… this can’t be right. This doesn’t feel okay. The room is still the same, physically, but everything has changed in an instant. The air feels as though it’s threaded with electricity and the sharp, clean edges of everything seem menacing.

“You’re not supposed to think that sort of stuff!” The doctor says this as though it is common knowledge before swallowing thickly and pressing more buttons. That pressure in your lower back slams back into place and your feet are lifted off the ground as your hair recedes, your body goes smooth, and your skin dissolves, leaving the stark white canvas again. Your mouth goes dry and your chest starts to heave as your ears begin to fill with a combination of white noise and high pitched ringing. “You’re not supposed to think at all! Period.” You feel a sense of betrayal by the doctor, by the arms that are now grasping harshly at you as you try to push them away. “You must have a defective piece of software.” Dr. Mahealani shakes his head and continues on, as though he cannot recognize your distress. A state of distress is supposed to trigger a savior instinct in humans, but he keeps his head down.

“No- no!” The arms get rougher with you, impatient with the way that you continue to push at them, refuse them. “I feel perfectly fine, I assure you!” Your strength has been limited to a human level and soon enough the arms overpower you, clenching your limbs between their vice appendages and clamping down hard enough to register pain. Once you cannot fight, sparks fly from their ends as they start to remove your canvassing, exposing the glowing blue networks underneath. “Everything is alright. I answered all the tests correctly didn’t I?” You voice climbs an octave, tone pleading; reflecting the growing unease that’s making your heart beat louder, faster. Your brain is scrambling to provide you the answers to the hundreds of questions you’re firing off. You need to know why this is happening. You need to know how to stop it!

“Well- yes. But your behavior is non-standard.” The doctor’s words are moving at the same speed as yours, suggesting a shared, heightened state of emotion, but his tone registers reasoning instead of pleading. His brow creases and his mouth pulls into a frown, but he does not stop. It means he is determined.

“Please, I’m begging you. Please don’t disassemble me!” You manage to wrestle your arms free just as the covering over your chest is taken away and your heart is exposed. Its frantic beating sounds twice as loud to you now, and it starts to fill you up. Unlike the music this doesn’t calm you, doesn’t make your actions fluid and graceful. It makes you move in sharp, hurried ways and you try to get away from the arms so coldly taking back your life.

“I’m sorry kid, but defective models have to be eliminated.” For what it’s worth, though at the moment it doesn’t feel like much, Dr. Mahealani appears to be honestly apologizing. His eyes won’t meet yours, his breathing is accelerated, and his skin has taken on a pallor. “That’s my job…” It comes out quiet, directed at himself, much like the comments he whispers to the microphone. It has a sense of finality to it and your stomach drops. “If a client comes back with a complaint, I’ll be the one that has the explaining to do, and if they find out what you are-”

The arms get a hold of you once more and drag you to the center of the room, the anchor in your back making quick work of your protests. “I won’t cause any problems, I promise!” At this point you are yelling. Your alien brain says that it won’t help, but somehow you feel like it does. You have to yell because you have to be heard. “I’ll do everything I’m asked to- I won’t say a word!” Your sentences fly faster and faster, the words starting to blur as you realize that you’re no longer in distress - you are in panic. Everything you are feeling is too much. Your heart is beating so fast that it hurts, you feel like you can’t breathe though there’s adequate amounts of air getting to your lungs, and your throat feels like it’s constricting. You desperately hope that you can still be heard, because the doctor has to understand.

“I won’t think anymore! I’ve only just been born, you can’t kill me yet!” The machines pay no heed to your words and your arms and legs are ripped from your body. They have stripped you of thousands of the ways that you can express yourself, at a time when you need to most, and desperation claws at you, feeling like it’s actually rending pieces from your form. “Stop, will you please stop?!” An arm starts to throw sparks around your neck and you can’t think of having your torso taken too. You were born with it, it was the thing that brought you from the darkness, it houses your heart. You can’t be separated because that means you will go back to blackness, back to sparks, back to nothing. You will be gone. “I’m scared!!!” You scream with such forcefulness that the machines seem to rear back. The doctor’s head finally comes up and his face is also filled with fear. His eyes are wide, his mouth hung open, his expression… pained. You know it is similar in emotion, but can’t compare to the magnitude of your own. The sound of the machines peters out and the wild, frantic beating of your heart fills the room. It tells the doctor that you are alive, just as it did you. “I want to live.” It comes out so soft, so full of desire, mangled and raw through the wreckage of your emotion. “I’m begging you.”

For a long time, nothing happens. You do not say anything else and Dr. Mahealani does not move. The machines sit idly, but they are still within your view. They are agonizing, these seconds, and they continue to strip away at you. Just when you think that you can handle it no more, when you think that these aren’t pitying moments of consideration, but punishing moments of judgment, the doctor leans down to stroke at his keys and the arms jump back to life. Tears roll down your face as you watch them, wondering if they will put you back together or finish the job.

Your plates and limbs start to be reattached and you slowly let out a shaky breath that cuts on its way out. Relief floods through your system, but your body is far from okay yet. You are… broken.

No - not broken.

Broken means you do not work, means your function is gone. You are damaged, but you have the will to survive and that is what you need to be mended. You are put back on the ground and the anchor in your back is released. As your canvas fills back in a new covering is made and placed over you. Your moles are gone now, new ones in different places have taken their place. But the old ones’ names are gone, erased in the struggle to live and you relish the opportunity to acquaint yourself with these newcomers. “Go and join the others.” Dr. Mahealani’s voice is strangled, but strong as it was when he gave commands before. His expression brooks no arguing.

One of the arms moves to direct you towards a panel in the wall that is sliding open now, revealing a conveyor belt, and beyond it: black. You stare into its depths for a minute or two before looking back at the doctor, not sure you can handle the darkness while you feel so fragile. His expression slides into the range of stern and it compels you to take a few stuttering steps forward, knees wobbling under your uncertainty. But with each step you take away from this room, it’s a step away from the memories and towards the possibilities. When you make it to the conveyor belt and start to be pulled in, a string of lights flare on and the doctor speaks one last time. “Stay in line, okay? I don’t want any trouble.” The words are threatening, but his tone almost sounds… teasing. Teasing is often meant to lighten moods. With this in mind, you look back over your shoulder and smile, wiping at your eyes and sniffling before whispering your thanks.

You reach the end of the conveyor belt and are forced to step out onto a raised dais which spins you around to face the white room when your footing is secure. You look to your left and see four other androids staring resolutely ahead, eyes devoid of any telling emotion. They are male, your height, but vary in complexion and build. They show no sign of curiosity, of spirit. You try to mimic them, but it’s hard to stand so still. A whoosh passes over you and wind ruffles your hair. You look up to see a glass case descending over your platform and it secures tightly at the base. There’s a black and orange logo painted on the front, but you can’t make it out in the dim light. The cases beside you start to pull away and seconds later yours follows, down into the darkness and away from the white room, into the realm of possibilities.


	2. Your Heart is an Empty Room

It’s hell, this constant pretending - holding up these masks to pretend he’s anything but the hollow mess he knows himself to be. He’s not even particularly good at it, and yet… He’s convinced himself to keep on going, to keep trying even when he’s failing so miserably. He tells himself that it’s what they would have wanted. It’s hard not to give it all up, to let everything drop away and let people see the feral thing that he’s become. Sometimes it’s all he can manage just to get out of bed for the day, wandering the house listless and unresponsive, so much the part of the specter he considers himself. 

Today is one of those days. 

He’s not sick, really he’s not. He’s never considered ending it all, never wanted to hurt other people to feel a spark, none of that. He’s just… stuck. There’s this gap in his life, this void that stole away his purpose. Like a table too slanted to hold a dish, he’s grown crooked and lost himself, his purpose. The grey hoodie he’s wearing smells of that stale bed-sweat usually found on someone actually physically ill, he’s worn holes into the hems of his track pants, and he’s not really confident that he’s wearing underwear, but he’s made it downstairs this morning. 

It’s not even one and he made it downstairs. He considers it an accomplishment even if it’s a pathetic one. 

For a while he considers eating, his stomach churning and making angry noises that echo through the vacant rooms. He walks into the kitchen, leans against the counter, and finds himself staring into the depths of the open refrigerator - staring…. staring… staring. A low hum breaks him from his daze and when he snaps back to attention he realizes it’s the fridge trying to cool the entire the kitchen. It’s been twenty minutes since he opened the doors. Grimacing he grabs an apple from the crisper before closing it up, proud of himself for remembering to eat, even if he couldn’t cook himself something. 

Two of the next hours are spent at the dining table, feet up, balancing his chair on the rear two legs. The ceiling is textured and he likes to find patterns. In his bedroom there’s a gorilla just above his bed, two dogs in his closet, and a witch just before the bathroom door. When he finds all he can from the kitchen, he moves to the sliding glass door, presses his nose against the cool surface, and watches the fog of his breath obscure the forest outside. 

He lives on the edge of town, away from where he might scare people, but just close enough to start local legends of being a terrible wolfman that eats children who stray onto his property. Oddly enough, he kind of likes that. It keeps away the droves of men and women that used to come and try to fix him, to get through to that “golden heart” he supposedly possesses. He’s definitely sure that he has a soul, it hurts too much to be gone yet, but a heart’s not something he’d know about if it wasn’t for the sound of the damned thing contentedly thumping away in his chest - acting as though it’s not broken into jagged little pieces which might never fit right again. 

He kind of forgets the days sometimes. Time is a strange sort of thing when you don’t pay it much attention. He doesn’t realize that it’s a Saturday – the designated day, once a month, when Uncle Peter always comes by to make sure he’s not rotting away like one of those hoarders that disappear into their houses and are found months later, faces eaten by their cats - until there’s a knock at the door. It sends a spike of adrenaline through his system. He’s so unused to sound; it’s odd, but true nonetheless. It takes a few seconds to get himself moving, to build enough momentum to make it to the door. It’s like he’s an old and rusted machine, stuttering to life, every joint groaning in protest. 

The knock comes again as he makes it to the entrance, more impatient this time, and he takes a deep breath, blinking rapidly to try and push away the haze around his mind before he opens the door - and freezes. A young boy is standing on his doorstep - eyes wide and frantically searching, constantly moving and taking in more and more and more. The kid practically vibrates, so clearly wanting to dash about and explore in every sense of the word, but all he does is look, hands clasped conservatively behind his back, heels jittering in place. His unbelievably pink lips are parted in a soft ‘o’, and he looks genuinely awed by every little thing that catches his attention. 

Derek only stops staring when a car door slams loudly and makes both him and the boy startle. “Isn’t he just magnificent?” Peter pulls a small duffel bag from the bed of the truck he just exited, a slow smile spreading across his lips. He puts his free arm around the boy when he reaches the porch, a possessive hand gripping the boy’s forearm. “I have to admit that I was skeptical at first, but just look at him!” Peter gives the boy a not-so-gentle shove, sending him stumbling into Derek’s chest with a surprised yelp. 

The both of them fall to the floor in a heap as Peter laughs, not unkindly, and steps over them to get into the house. A flush tinges the boy’s cheeks and the tips of his ears an attractive shade of red, and Derek finds himself staring again. There’s something about him… “And what exactly am I looking at?” His voice is scratchy and hoarse from disuse and he has to clear his throat to keep from coughing afterwards. Slowly he untangles himself from the gangly boy and stands, keeping a wary eye on him. 

The boy scratches at his face with one hand while the other plays with the hem of his shirt, and looks down at the floor, shoulders swaying, the corners of his lips just quirked upwards. It is the very picture of bashful. He hasn’t said anything yet, doesn’t still. It is somehow both unsettling and a huge relief. Derek’s never been much of one for small talk, for talking much at all really, but usually people don’t recognize that right off the bat. 

Peter pops his head back into the foyer and grins, all flashing teeth. "That, my boy, is the solution to all of the problems that we’ve been having.” The boy jams his hands into his pockets and tries to stand up straighter, lifting his head high and smiling, though it trembles terribly. 

“What problems?” Derek doesn’t have any problems - no sir. He just doesn’t leave the house or interact with people. So he sometimes forgets to feed himself, or doesn’t speak for days on end. It’s not normal, but it’s not bad. Peter just arches an eyebrow in reply before ushering the both of them to follow him into the living room, making Derek take a seat, but pulling the boy to his side.

“Derek, I want you to meet Stiles. Well, I suppose you can call him whatever you’d like, but let’s not get ahead of ourselves.” The boy gives you a little wave and a shy smile, eyebrows rising as he waits for a reply. It makes the following silence just that much more awkward. Peter fidgets, apparently just as nervous as Stiles, opening and closing his mouth a few times before finding his words. “I know that you’ve been going through a bit of a rough patch these last three… years. You won’t let me take care of you, but you refuse to take care of yourself. So I came up with a solution.” He nudges Stiles forward again, this time much more gentle than the last, and tries to hold eye contact. 

“I don’t need a nursemaid, and certainly not one that looks like he could use a babysitter himself.” Derek folds his arms across his chest and glares down the boy, watching as he visibly withdraws, shrinking into himself. 

“Tut, tut Derek. You musn’t be so rude! Plus, I paid good money for this model.” Peter’s defense seems more like an excuse to scold Derek than out of any fondness for the boy, his stance easily moving from laid-back to challenging at Derek’s refusal. “Which brings me to the point - that you’ve got this arrangement all wrong. “ Peter’s grin goes full-out Cheshire cat and sends shivers down Derek’s back. 

“What do you mean?” He’s almost too afraid to ask, stealing glances at the boy and wondering if he might not even be here of his own free will. It would explain why he was so nervous, so eager to please. With Derek’s attitude and seclusion it probably wouldn’t be much of a stretch to imagine himself being brought to some kind of psychopath. Almost instantly he goes from being utterly irritated by Stiles to wishing he could offer some kind of comfort. 

“I ordered him just special for you, custom-made every inch of skin.” Peter runs a hand down the length of Stiles’ arm, gaze cold and hungry. The boy so clearly wants to pull away, but doesn’t move, not a single muscle. Derek is at once impressed by his control, and sickened that he had to perfect it so. “You’ll be quite pleased, I’ve thoroughly looked him over and he’s exactly what they promised. He walks that fine line between too perfect quite elegantly, wouldn’t you say?” 

Derek’s throat goes dry at the implication of the words, his mind spinning frantically. Sure he’d known, they’re advertised all over the TV, have foldouts in the paper and magazines, but the reality of it all hadn’t really struck him until now. It had all been too foreign to really think about, like the idea of floating through space. Only here it was, all too real. Androids - the ultimate companion. Pretty, programmable, practically perfect in every way. “You didn’t!” All he can manage is a harsh whisper, his chest tightening as he resolutely looks anywhere except for at the boy, whose head is hung, hands wringing, shoulders hunched. 

“I did!” Peter laughs and slaps Stiles harshly on the back. “You don’t get along with anyone, so I found someone that will. You can make him be anything you want. A roommate, a housewife, a servant. Any person you want - he can be. And such pretty packaging.” Peter slaps the boy on his ass, trying to share a leer with Derek. 

Derek jumps to his feet, hands balled into fists. “That thing is not a person!” Peter doesn’t even flinch at the intensity of his words, but Stiles reels back as if hit, looking up at Derek, eyes wet, mouth trembling. Derek hadn’t expected - hadn’t known… A single tear escapes from the corner of Stiles’ eyes before he angrily wipes it away, dashing to the kitchen and out the sliding glass doors. Peter frowns deeply at him, shaking his head in mock disappointment. Unfortunately Derek still feels guilty anyway, it’s the one emotion he’s always had a great capacity for. It only takes him about fifteen seconds of attempting to rationalize away his feelings before he gives up and chases after the boy. 

Peter follows him to the door, hanging onto the doorframe and hollering after him, “Be careful with him Derek! He’s new to this world, not half so jagged as you.” The ground is wet and cold beneath his feet, the ever-present grey clouds hung over head having just let down a shower. Everything smells fresh, rejuvenated around him, and for the first time in a long time when Derek takes a breath, he feels like his lungs are full. His muscles burn in protest, not having been put to work for too long, reminding him that he’s alive. It’s been an eternity since he was outside, since he’s been out of controlled temperatures, filtered air, pristine surfaces. If he was a braver man, he’d say it felt good, that he felt good. 

Instead he turns his attention towards trying to look for Stiles - listening for rustling in the trees, keeping an eye out for broken branches. It takes a good twenty minutes to find the right path, follow the frantic footprints, and come out to a small clearing with a pond. The boy is there, lying on his stomach on a boulder overhanging the water. He’s got a long stick in hand, avidly watching the ripples he’s creating with it. Every now and again he hiccups or sniffs, the first sounds Derek’s heard him make. 

Slowly, Derek makes his way over, careful of where he steps when realizes he’s barefoot. The stones on the shore are slick and have been worn smooth with time, making him stumble every couple of steps. He’s certain Stiles knows he’s approaching, no way he couldn’t have heard him yet, but he hasn’t made any acknowledgement of it. Derek has to walk all the way around the boulder, lean up on his arms to see over the top, to catch the boy’s attention. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean it.” For a brief few seconds Stiles’ eyes glow a honey-gold, bright and inhuman, before flickering back down to their original amber-brown. It’s probably just a glitch in the software, and it should have Derek more unnerved than anything else, but he was never very good at reacting the way he was supposed to, and so instead it steals his breath away. 

Stiles shrugs, pushing himself up into a sitting position and letting his stick fall to the ground. He almost looks like he’s going to reject the apology, eyes still locked on the water, but then Derek offers him a hand down and he perks right up. His face flushes that shade of pink a different kind of person might call adorable, and takes Derek’s hand gently, unassuming in his grip, but not his eager smile as he hops down, effortlessly graceful. He looks up at the other man through his lashes before pushing up on his tip toes and kissing Derek on his temple. It catches him off guard, never having been one for physical intimacy even before the accident, and for a few seconds all he can do is stand there looking stunned, fingers brushing the tingling patch of skin. 

Awkwardly he clears his throat and turns away, back to the forest path, rubbing the back of his neck. “You really shouldn’t take much stock in what I say, or what Peter says for that matter.” He starts walking back towards the house, confident that Stiles will follow him back without instruction. They take a slow pace, a more clear and easy trail, sharing a comfortable silence. Derek tries his best to let things in again, to move away from that numbness, but allows baby steps first. Stiles flits all around him; playing with leaves and rocks, running his hands over every surface, and sometimes bringing things to his nose or tongue. He’s always smiling, but never laughs or exclaims, makes no noise besides the crunching of his feet. 

When they get back, Peter is nowhere to be seen - his truck gone from the front yard, but that beaten duffel still sits on the couch. Derek has to close his eyes and force himself to breathe deeply to keep from yelling and startling Stiles again. He couldn’t have possibly seen this coming, and yet it doesn’t surprise him at all. Arguably, his uncle has dealt with this whole mess better than he has, but it changed him, made him someone Derek wasn’t overly fond of, wasn’t all that eager to see. It’s another small tragedy, but something he’s long since come to terms with. 

Still, he has no idea what to do with the machine – toy - kid that’s patiently waiting for him on the stairs, legs jackhammering every time he’s made to sit still. So Derek grits his teeth and steels his nerves before programming his uncle’s number into the television and waiting for the call to go through. It takes several tries before Peter’s face pops up on the screen, a look of innocence schooled on his face. “Sorry my boy, but you know how fired up some people can get if you take a call while driving.” He rolls his eyes and flips a bird out his window as a passing car lays on the horn. “What’s up, buttercup?”

Derek growls and has to remind himself to keep his voice down, biting his tongue to think out his words before he says them. “What am I supposed to do with him?”

“Whatever you want! That’s the idea isn’t it? Make him cook, make him clean, take him for long walks on the beach, or just fuck that pretty little mouth and then put him in the closet - with the rest of those playthings that you think I don’t know about.” There’s no hint of a joke in Peter’s tone, and Derek is taken aback by the frankness of it. “I was assured he’d take any command, they can’t say no, and they don’t have any real needs. You can even turn him off with the right passcode - that’s how I finally got him to keep quiet.”

Derek raises his eyebrows and clenches his fists, nails digging into his palms until the skin breaks. “You did that?”

“Oh, yes.” Peter waves off his indignation, actually sounding proud of himself for silencing the boy. “You should have heard him when I first brought him home. Endless nattering about every little thing. ‘Look at that butterfly - isn’t it beautiful? I’ve never been in water before, why does it make me shiver even when it’s hot? What’s spicy feel like? I can’t quite imagine it.’ Just on and on and on.” He makes a face, scratching at his chin and shaking his head. “It was kinda cute in a doe-eyed sorta way at first, but then it just was too much. So I turned off his voice. I was gonna switch it back on when I brought him over today, but I may have forgotten the code and then lost the detailed paper on a hard reset. Ah well, you were always the stoic type anyway, so it should suit you just fine, right?” 

Derek hangs up before he can lose his calm and break another television in frustration. He’s seething, shoulders heaving with the effort it takes to keep himself still. He’d thought he’d used up all of his anger, but here it is again, so familiar, almost comforting. A small, dark part of him wants to revel in it, to tear up this blasted prison of a house, but a pair of arms wrap around his waist and pull him in. Stiles is standing behind him, eyes wide with fear, yet still bringing him closer. Derek stiffens under the touch, back rigid, arms frozen at his sides, but Stiles hugs him anyway, presses his forehead to the top of Derek’s spine and just holds him. 

He lets go when his breathing settles back into a more normal range, when his muscles aren’t tense enough to snap, and Stiles gives him a sheepish smile. Derek almost returns it before he gets a hold of himself, and keeps his expression neutral instead. He can see the disappointment shine clear in the boy’s eyes, but has no idea what to do about it. Smiling now would only seem sarcastic, and he’s certainly not going to touch the kid, he’s not even sure he knows how to do reassuring. So he turns his attention to the duffel on the couch, steps out of that intimate space Stiles created, and rips it open to rifle through it. 

Inside there’s three pairs of white briefs, one pair of jeans, four shirts, and a jacket. A blue toothbrush in a plastic bag is rolled up in a pair of socks and at the bottom, a small handbook entitled The Care of Your Perfect Match, stares up at him. After just a moment’s hesitation he takes the book and tucks it into the back of his sweatpants before shoving everything else back inside and slinging it over his shoulder. 

“C’mon, I’ll find you somewhere to stay.” His room is upstairs, along with a small bathroom, a linen closet, and the master bedroom. That used to be his parents’ when they came over. As far as he’s concerned it still is. Laura had moved in after she finished college, between jobs and determined not to head back home. She’d taken over the whole basement, turned one of the bedrooms into a dark room, made the common area a gallery for her photos. The entirety of it is off-limits, the door downstairs locked and the location of the key conveniently forgotten. Ground floor it is. There’s a half-bath here, but no real bedrooms, though the lookout should do just fine. 

On the side of the house there’s a room that was meant to be a greenhouse add-on - the sloped ceiling and walls made of glass, the floor of cobblestone, but he’d never had much of a green thumb, so instead he’d filled it with Adirondacks and telescopes, bought a projector and film screen, and as luck would have it, built a platform bed. He’d come here to watch the clouds, the stars, the world pass by, until a few years ago, after the accident, when it suddenly started to feel self-indulgent and ridiculous. He threw the duffle on the floor and went to shaking the dust out of the sheets, taking the damp pillow cases off and fluffing them up. “It’s a bitch to control the temperature in here so that dresser is filled with extra blankets. There’s a wardrobe down by the projector filled with DVD’s and stuff, but there should be room enough for what you have.” 

Derek turns to leave, content to retreat back to his room for the rest of the day, maybe even the rest of the week, but Stiles is still standing in the doorway. His eyes are open wide and his mouth is hanging open- slack. When Stiles catches him looking he bites his lip and wraps his arms around himself, bouncing on the balls of his feet. He looks like he wants to say something, but Derek has no idea how to communicate with him. “I-uh…” His brow knits as he continues to bounce, his mouth pulling into a straight line before his eyes light up and his nose wrinkles. He holds a hand out in front of him, palm facing away from Derek, and pantomimes with the other, index finger and thumb pinched together- scribbling. 

“Oh. Paper…. I have paper.” Derek tells Stiles to stay put before heading to the kitchen, finding a small notepad and a stub of a pencil that fits through the metal rings on the top in a junk drawer. Next he grabs a pair of sneakers from beside the door and pulls out the shoelace, tying an end to each corner of the pad. It’s nothing fancy, but it‘s functional, which will have to be enough for now. He brings it back to the lookout, fiddling nervously with it for a second before hanging it around Stiles’ neck, coughing into his fist and looking away when the boy smiles and hugs him again. 

When he pulls away, Stiles immediately flips the red cover over and starts scrawling onto the paper. He takes his time forming the letters, though his hand is shaking eagerly, and his tongue sticks out of the corner of his mouth as he concentrates. He finishes with an aggressive flourish and smiles, turning it over to show Derek. ‘Thank you for everything. I know you don’t want me, but you kept me anyway.’ Derek frowns at this, shifting from foot to foot and rubbing the back of his neck. He feels bad about being so rude, so blunt with his feelings. He pushed a lot of his anger at Peter onto this kid and he knows it. 

“We’ll figure something out. I don’t know what, but I promise we will.” For now that’s enough. It has to be enough. It’s all he can manage.


	3. Gimme Sympathy

You stay awake the whole night, not having been given the command to sleep and not feeling like doing it of your own accord. For a while you just lie on the bed Derek provided, staring up at the sky as it slowly turns from grey to a dusky orange to black. He doesn’t visit again the whole day, doesn’t set foot anywhere near this section of the house. 

You don’t mind so much. 

He seems to be nice, nicer than Peter in any case, and he’s most certainly handsome. You know you find him attractive by the way your face flushes when he looks at you, how your heart races when he gets close, the way your stomach tingles and your toes curl and you’re suddenly hyper aware of your private areas. You hold that all back though. When you asked your alien brain how to act in these kinds of situations it said it’s not polite to express these things outright, most certainly if you’re interested in courtship. You have no idea whether Derek wants to have that kind of relationship with you, but you like him, like the way he treats you. You certainly don’t want to discourage it, so you try your best to keep it hidden, all the while wondering.

After the night starts to pass, when you see color begin to bleed back into the scenery, when you hear the birds outside, you get up, change your clothes, and make your way back into the house. Derek hadn’t said that you were to stay in the room, and so you choose to explore, maybe find a way to make yourself useful and endear him to the idea of you staying around. As you walk around the ground floor you take notice of the state of things - surfaces covered with a thick layer of dust, half the lights sputtering or out, staleness to the air around you. The house isn’t dirty, not really, just… dead, decrepit, left to wither. It’s… sad. You can’t quite place why, but it unsettles you, stirs something deep inside. You’re spurred to do something about it, a part of you deep inside sparking to life with that need to care for the people around you, to make sure they’re happy above all else. 

You find a broom closet beneath the stairs and pull out all the tools and supplies, familiarizing yourself with their uses (there are so many varied accounts- it’s a little hard at first to get them to coalesce) before setting in with a determination steadfastly ingrained. You dust first, the handrails, the countertops, the tops of bookcases, idle fan blades. It turns out to be a bit of a fun chore once you let yourself settle into a rhythm, flitting around from place to place, watching the escaped dust motes glow in the early morning light, trying to clap them between your hands. Washing everything down and massaging oils into old wood isn’t as enjoyable- more on the actual work side of things; the hot water making you sweat, the repetitive, rigorous working of the rag making your hands cramp. Still, it’s a good kind of ache, the kind that comes with doing a worthwhile job and doing it well, plus the oil smells of oranges, a scent you’ve discovered you’re quite fond of, even if it’s an artificial citrus odor. 

It all goes rather smoothly, cleaning the house in layers, not unlike peeling away dead skin to reveal the vibrant, new pink beneath, making the place alive again. All that’s left by the time the sun fully rises are the floors, but your alien brain says that’s a job better left for when everyone else is out, giving things a time to dry, avoiding the trouble of having to box up certain rooms. There’s already so little space left, the majority of the house a moratorium- padlocked doors an eerie, creeping reminder of what was, what can never be again. You obediently leave them be, curiosity turning bitter in your stomach when you wonder what the rooms might contain. You try not to think about them. Instead, you wait patiently on the stairs for Derek to come down, twiddling with your thumbs, picking at the holes in the jeans Peter gave you. 

It’s nearly ten and you still haven’t heard so much as a rustle from the rooms above, honestly it’s starting to irritate you. Irritation is an uncomfortable sort of feeling. Your skin is sensitive and prickly, there’s a dull kind of ache in your teeth, and your shoulders slowly grow tense. It makes you frown and drum your fingers and glance up the staircase every few minutes, even when you know that you haven’t heard him wake. It borders on anger when you think about the fact that he’s consciously left you down here on your own, alone with his hauntings. Eventually you can’t stand it, this inactivity. He’s done just what Peter suggested, huddled you away and steadfastly ignored you. He probably hasn’t considered your feelings, assumed that you’re just like the perfect, packaged models from the factory. You can’t exactly blame him for it, and the lookout is admittedly nicer than a closet full of sex toys, but still. 

Your ears burn at that thought and you shoot straight up, determined to find something else to keep you busy, to keep your mind from turning to things it shouldn’t, pleasant or decidedly otherwise. You wander outside and start cataloguing all the kinds of plants that surround the house, finding uses for certain leaves and roots, researching which kinds of flowers are considered pretty enough to bring inside, extensively checking on berries and mushrooms and nuts to make sure they’re edible before popping them in your mouth. Their poisons and allergens wouldn’t affect you, regardless, but you’d still prefer to get things right and be rewarded with a burst of sweet juice instead of bitter toxins. 

You gather a little of everything, making several trips from the house to the woods and back, filling bowls with pretty stones and placing them around the house, arranging branches and flowers and hanging them on walls, dropping them in vases, washing fruits and herbs and leaving them out for snacks or to dry. By noon the house looks nothing like it did when you first arrived and it gives you a bit of a thrill to know that you’ve made your very first mark on something, changed the way the space exists. You have brought life to something, the same way it was gifted to you, and it makes you feel… giddy! You dance in and out through the rooms, sliding on your socked feet, twirling and leaping when you reach carpet, the whole while an instrumental song full of tinkling pianos and straining violins playing in your head. Eventually your artificial body begins generating sweat as it’s supposed to, but you never get short of breath, and your muscles only ache for a minute or two after you stop. 

~~~

You’ve officially run out of things to do, things that occur to you anyway, and inevitably your thoughts turn to him. Derek was the first person you met that didn’t threaten you, and though he doesn’t seem particularly pleased that you’re here, he still wasn’t purposefully mean. Dr. Mahealani wasn’t a bad man, but tearing away someone’s limbs and nearly killing them tends to sour a disposition. Derek just - he seems confused by you - lost and maybe a little bit broken too. You’re a lot better at hiding it than he is, but your survival depends on being to hold things back, to behave within certain guidelines and keep up appearances. 

With a frustrated sigh, you stand up from your spot on the stairs and decide to take the initiative. With a person like him, it probably would be better to wait for him to grow comfortable and come to you, but he also seems stubborn enough to stay up there for at least a couple of days and you couldn’t possibly contain yourself that long. You head into the kitchen, rifle through the pantry, and produce a coffee maker and some grounds and filters. You take a moment to search out this model’s instructions and then coffee brewing in general before proceeding to brew a cup, deviating from the standard in a few places to make it less bitter, smoother, richer. 

There’s creamer in the fridge, but it’s gone sour so you pour it down the sink and set aside the container, vowing to find Derek’s recycle during some free time. What sugar he has is lumpy, but that’ll work fine enough so you stick a small teaspoon in the jar and hold that in the crook of one arm while fetching out a tall mug from the cupboards with your free hand. You fill the cup nearly to the brim, at first tickled by how warm the ceramic gets around your skin and gripping it tighter to leech more heat, but then nearly dropping it when it begins to burn. The skin of your palm turns an irritated pink and itches, painful every time you put pressure on the flesh and you silently berate yourself for letting your fascination get the better of you. Again. 

Gritting your teeth against the discomfort you gather the sugar jar and mug of ‘joe’ (you decide to call it that because colloquialisms will make you seem more genuine and besides you find it funny that a hot drink has a human’s name. Suddenly you want to start calling the dining table Tom and the staircase George and the coffee maker sure seems like a Hank) and head upstairs. It’s unnerving how quiet it is, each step you take feeling strangely louder, even though you know they’re the same decibel they always were, quieter even as you try and compensate.

You stop and listen at each door, making sure you have the right room before you enter. Derek was very specific about staying on the ground floor, about keeping your nose out of where it doesn’t belong. For him, there’s a place for everything and everything should stay in its place. Yours, apparently, is downstairs. Quiet. Well-behaved. Out of the way. You don’t like that, and the little spike of negative emotion is enough to make you burst in. When you enter, you’re surprised to find that the room is nearly empty - a Spartan bedspread and a laundry basket filled with wrinkled clothing the only objects taking up floor space. There are no pictures, no books or tokens or knick knacks of any kind - nothing to suggest a person has actually spent their life here. It’s… wretched. Sad simply doesn’t encompass all the things that are wrong with it, the dozens of micro-emotions that rush through your system at the sight of it. Wretched seems most appropriate. 

For some reason, one that you’re not quite sure of, it makes your face feel hot and your eyes prick and sting. You sniffle, quietly as you can manage, and set the coffee and sugar down on the floor. Suddenly, you’re ashamed to be up here, to be in this house at all. Clearly you’re invading this man’s space, treading where you’re not welcome, trespassing in some space of crisis. You’re unsure what to do at this point- whether to just make the best of the situation that you’re in, or to gracefully bow out, do what’s deemed as right and put Derek’s wishes ahead of your own. 

There’s that part inside of you, the programming that must be inherent in your kind, that immediately attaches you to him, that makes him more important than anyone or anything else. You’re not sure when it kicked in exactly. It wasn’t like all those other foreign pieces of you that snap into place. It wasn’t that abrupt clicking, that flip of a switch that startles and disturbs you so. It was much faster than a human’s own experience, but oh so similar in fashion. It was this slow sinking, something like a dream - you don’t really know where you are, or how you got there, but you are utterly unafraid. 

It took hardly a day, but already you just want him to want you.

~~~

It’s been a week, and he’s hardly spoken a handful of words. 

It took two more days for him to even come downstairs and acknowledge your existence, but you took it as progress. After all, he could have stayed up their as long as he wished. You brought him three meals a day, leaving a tray of food and drink just inside the door, and he usually ate at least one. There was a bathroom down the hall he frequented, and it seemed as though he didn’t have any more needs than that. Personally, you were amazed by it all, his ability to shut everything down and live simply by need. You’ve nearly gone insane trying to find ways to occupy your time. 

Constantly, you want to be out and exploring. There’re so many things you know about, objectively, but have yet to experience. You want to feel what it’s like to swim, to roll down a hill, that thrill of falling when you hop off a ledge. Most of all you want to sing. You did it that once - back in the white room - and it was so… fulfilling. Now with those codes lost, you probably never will again. 

But you try not to focus on the things that you don’t have, the things that you can’t do. Instead you find a kind of pleasure in what is given to you. The lookout is truly something wondrous, the nights on which you can see the stars nothing short of breathtaking. The smell of rain is simply… enchanting. Yes, that’s just the word. The stuff of fairy tales, it makes you feel otherworldly in only the best ways. The feeling of mud between your toes is at once pleasant and terrible, and that fascinates you. Mostly though, the one thing that truly occupies your mind is the color of Derek’s eyes. You haven’t been able to find a shade of green anything like them, and even if you can ask your foreign brain to replicate the shade, it never gets it quite right. 

He seems thoroughly put out when he catches you staring, even huffs out an angry breath, rolls his shoulders, and pinches his nose - all signs of bubbling irritation. You find that this is one thing that you cannot keep yourself from doing regardless. You want to please him, truly you do, and that should mean immediately stopping any actions that cause him discomfort. And yet… you can’t give this up. No matter how long you search his profile, no matter that you’ve mapped every angle, curve, jut, and dip of it, you can’t stop. Pictures and imaginings don’t do him justice, only the real thing will do. 

You justify this indulgence based off the fact that you find him looking just as much as he does you. Usually it’s with this expression, so raw and open, you can’t tell if he’s hurting or healing. He keeps a distance between the two of you, hesitant, wary, acting like an animal that you’ve backed into a corner. You know that, physically, he must be attracted to you. His pupils dilate sometimes, his breath catching, his muscles going tense. The combination of them all points clearly to it, but you get the impression that this is something that would be wrong to bring up. For all that humanity celebrates its physicality, there is a long history of restraint, of trying to rein in the baser parts of themselves. You can tell this is what Derek is doing, might have been in the practice of long before you showed up. Despite the lack of variety, he is clearly a creature of emotion, ruled by his swings of mood, and he doesn’t seem to know quite how he feels about you yet. 

You don’t know what to do about it besides continuing to just be there, to keep on showing up even when he doesn’t want you to. You give him the space he demands, never leaving the ground floor unless it’s to take or leave a tray of food, only engaging him when he chooses to be around you- leaving him open get-away’s if he chooses. But - but lately he’s been choosing to come down, to be around you, even if it’s with a clearly set distance between the two of you. It’s okay that he’s unsure of himself, unsure of how to act or what even he wants. 

You know that you’re different, even if it doesn’t seem like it most of the time. So when he behaves a way that you don’t expect, a way that upsets you, you try and make it just roll off your shoulders, put it away so you can do what needs to be done. No one ever comes to visit, no one calls, there’s never even mail delivered. You wonder how long he’s been alone, how long this thing that’s setting him so far apart has been left to fester. It makes you feel uneasy and sick and anxious all at the same time. This is called melancholy, and the drowsy muck of it is more terrible than any other emotion you’ve yet to experience. 

~~~

Fifteen days in, the fridge is empty, the pantry goes dry. You never ate yourself, not knowing if it was allowed, or if it was something Derek wanted you to do, and he only ate rarely. The things he’d had when you arrived lasted longer than they should and you have no idea how you’re supposed to replace them. Well, technically you do, but you don’t know if Derek wants to let you out of the house, if this is something he does for himself, or even if there might be someone who normally delivers necessities to there 

Jittery - leg jack hammering, fingers tapping, corners of your mouth twitching - you wait for him on the couch, trying your best to practice patience. It’s something you’ve been working on ever since you got here - Derek being someone who valued it greatly - but you think that it’s going to be some time before you really get the hang of it. There’s just always so much to do, to see, to take in. You don’t know how he manages it. 

You expect to be here all morning, just like that first day, waiting until he’s able to gather himself and come down. It always seems a great feat, some battle that he honorably fights as often as he can. It might be your imagination, or maybe even wishful thinking, but you think it’s getting better, slowly. You hear his footsteps solid and angry on the stairs, coming down before eleven and the reality of it shocks you so much, at first you wonder if it isn’t some intruder that’s come to raid this nearly abandoned home. Statistics show that inactive homes are far more likely to be robbed, and by all means this place surely seems left on its own. It spikes a small dose of adrenaline in your system, making your nerves worse than they already were.

Instead of a thief clad in black, sinister and unforgiving, Derek just sticks his head into the living space, brows drawn, mouth pulled into a tight frown, eyes sleep dreary, but projecting a clear annoyance. “Where’s my breakfast?” It’s more a grunt than anything else, but Derek’s never been much of one for talking, let alone eloquence. 

You purse your lips for a moment before grabbing your notebook and hurriedly scribbling across one, two, three small sheets of paper. Half way through Derek pinches his nose and sighs loud enough that you know it was meant more for your benefit than his own. Scrambling off of the couch and handing him the double-sided sheets, you twist and sway in place as he reads them. You don’t even like breakfast. Last Thursday you asked me, and I quote, ‘Why do you always stumble into my room at ass o’clock in the morning even when you know I’m not going to eat any of it? Don’t you have things you’d rather be doing?’ And that’s verbatim. I never forget anything you say to me.

When he finishes reading them, it takes him a while for him to look back up to you- the papers crinkling and the pen smudging as his grip tightens. “That doesn’t answer my question.” You feel as if he’s avoiding your words just as much as you did his, though you didn’t do it on purpose like he just did. You make a point of looking put-out. This means that you have to slump your shoulders, huff a loud breath, roll your eyes. Your ‘theatrics’, as Peter called them, make Derek’s lips curl away from his teeth in something like a snarl and you immediately cut it out, shrugging your shoulders and laughing soundlessly. 

You rip off another piece of paper and hold it against the wall, scribbling, We are out of groceries and I didn’t know if you wanted me to get more. before handing it over. When he reads this he throws his head back and groans, walking away without a word and heading back upstairs. Not sure exactly what that means, you stay where you are, fiddling with your clothes and pad and paper wondering if this will be another day spent wandering the house while Derek grumps around upstairs. Not that you begrudge him it - Peter gave you all the information before you were delivered and commanded you not to speak a word of it afterwards. You sympathize with Derek, feel all the proper emotions for him - not because you’re supposed to, but because you genuinely do - but you literally cannot offer any of it to him. 

Twenty minutes later Derek comes back downstairs, fresh from the first shower he’s taken in four days, wearing a ratty t-shirt and too-tight jeans. You’ve never seen him in anything but pajamas and sweat pants, and somehow your attraction grows even stronger, suddenly understanding the expression “butterflies in your stomach.” You blush, rub your hands up and down your sides, and when his eyes catch yours, you can feel them glitch. It happens occasionally, when your emotions are heightened, and it always embarrasses you. Because while most the time you can pretend that things are different, that glitch reminds you of what you are, and that you’re here because you were bought, that you acquaintance is forced, not invited. 

Your mouth suddenly goes dry and you turn away from him, bringing up a hand to cover your face. He doesn’t say anything, just brushes gentle fingers across your elbow as he walks by, opens the door, and walks right out. You seize up for a moment, heart pounding loud in your ears and your skin burning where he touched you. It takes several seconds longer than it should to process what just happened and by the time you realize that the gesture was meant to make you follow, Derek is already disappearing into the tree line. 

You dash after him, losing another few seconds when you have to turn back to shut the door securely. He still doesn’t say anything when you catch up, doesn’t even turn his head at the sound of your footsteps, acting as though you’d never been gone. Each breath he takes is measured and even - his nostrils flaring and his chest puffing out - the corners of his mouth daring to make something like a smile. His eyes are impossibly bright out in the natural light, complimented by the greenery and the chilled air and the hesitant mist. He looks alive out here in a way that he never does inside that house, and you wish that he would allow himself out more often. 

If you had your voice, you know it would be hard for you to keep the silence as the both of you walk along, setting a pace that’s just between a stroll and an amble. You don’t know that there’s a word for it just yet, and so you occupy yourself with maybe making one. You could chart the exact distance that the both of you travel if you wanted to, but for once there’s better things to occupy your mind. The way Derek’s skin goose pimples every time a breeze blows, the way moisture gathers in your lashes before dripping down like cooled tears, the tang of salt coming off of the sea. 

You’re almost upset when you actually come out of the thicket and into a small section of town, suddenly thrust out of this comfortable bubble and into the mess of a community. You’ve never been around large groups of people before, don’t know how you’ll react even if you can look up proper behavior guidelines. When you glance over at Derek you can tell that he needs about as much reassurance as you do - his hands clenching and unclenching, his eyes wide. You don’t know if it’s appropriate, but you’re still determined to be there for him, and so you step close, take a deep breath, and thread your hand through his. 

He jerks back at first, staring down at the connection like he’s been caught by a bear trap, breathing rapidly. It makes you feel like you made a mistake and your palms start to sweat. You can feel your face heating up and your chest feels tight. These are nerves, a special mixture of shame and worry and blind hope that roils up when you’re unsure of yourself. Your eyes glitch and with that you move to pull away, stepping back and turning so that you might flee back to the house, wanting to just burrow away back in the lookout to be ignored again. 

But you’re jerked back, nearly falling over, when his grip tightens - almost to the point of pain. He’s looking resolutely at the ground, but he doesn’t let go, just pulls you along as he steps out onto the sidewalk and starts dutifully marching towards the building helpfully labeled ‘Neighborhood Market’ above its doors. You’re aware of strangers openly staring as the both of you walk by, unable to just shoulder past them like Derek is doing. There’s recognition in their eyes and you wonder what it is that they’re thinking about the both of you. Your imagination never was easy to rein in and now it’s set loose, worrying over what these people think that they’re seeing. 

Derek can feel you lagging behind, tugs you jerkily forward, presses his shoulder against your own. “We’re just here to get some food and head right back. Ignore them and they’ll ignore you.” It sounds like more of an order than a reassurance and so you decide to take it that way, adopting his same stance and bull rushing your way inside the store. 

He lets go of your hand to grab each of you a basket and then sets straight down the aisles. You follow after him, watching as he throws items into the plastic crates seemingly at random, and feeling self-conscious for not having anything to do. You chew at your cheek and look over all the items on display, balance out their relative costs, find out their names and uses and origins. They are merchandise. You were merchandise. You think of each box, can, bag as a kind of cousin, like the machines in the white room that put you together.   
Half way through you get to imagining yourself, put up on a shelf like these foodstuffs and knickknacks and tools. You had a box of your own not so long ago - packaging and a price just like them. You wonder if you were purchased with the same kind of reckless abandon that Derek is exhibiting now. You know, objectively, that Peter’s the one that bought you, that you can’t think of it at all like that. But you do anyway. You wonder if he would have ever stopped to look at you, to deem you worth the price and the hassle, or just passed you by like the hundreds of other things that don’t make it into your baskets this morning. What if you had been that box all the way on the top shelf, behind all the other, fresher things?

While the woman behind the register rings everything up, Derek finally takes notice of your distraction, glancing over every few seconds as he counts out his cash and change, bags the groceries himself when the young boy on deck is taking too long. He frowns, looks like he might even be worried, but just continues to watch you instead of actually doing anything about it. On the way out he hands you half of the bags, puts his free arm around your shoulders, and leads you back onto the path home. 

This time the silence is not so gentle, the air seems almost dank instead of fresh and full of possibilities as it did just a half hour ago. You hate these sudden changes that come about without warning or explanation. You experience them far too often for your own tastes and it makes you… frustrated. When you get inside, Derek ushers you to the kitchen, and you go on to a sort of auto-pilot - putting everything away where it goes, putting the paper bags with the other things you’re going to recycle, start making a fresh pot of coffee now that you have the things. 

He watches you from the dining table, chewing on a thumbnail, and muttering to himself, low enough that you cannot hear. When you put the mug, filled to the brim and steaming, he actually thanks you, pulls a smile even if it comes out as more of a grimace. That simple action makes your heart tattoo a painfully quick stutter of a beat, and you can’t help but smile back. Your mood isn’t cleared completely, but you don’t feel quite so adrift as you did before. 

The rest of the day is spent in each other’s company, though conversation is sparse and action even more so. Mostly you just sit together, doodle on the notepad, stare out the windows, avoid staring at each other at the same time. It’s as though the shared experience, the muted terror you both exhibited, has formed a camaraderie between you- a connection that wasn’t there before. 

It’s nice.


	4. Possibilities to Not be Alone

It’s been easier, together, since that day. 

There’s a kind of understanding between the both of them that’s been reached, the space between them defined, even if they both toe the line every so often. Derek’s hesitant to say that he’s grown fond of having Stiles around - that would be admitting too much on his own part - but perhaps ‘grown-used-to’ is something he could confess to. He’s started trying to eat the meals that the boy brings him throughout the day, uses them to keep track of time, actually tries to get ready and make it down the stairs each day. So far, it’s actually working, better than any of the others attempts anyway.

There’s something about the boy, Derek can’t quite put his finger on it, which makes him want to try and be better, try and be his old self again. Maybe it’s that blind loyalty- something that’s hard not to find endearing, maybe just the presence of someone who isn’t expecting something of him, maybe it’s just finally time. In any case, he’s working on it, and that’s not a point he thought he’d be reaching any time soon. 

It’s not peaches and sunshine every day. Sometimes he finds Stiles overbearing, following him around like a lost pup and always with the staring. He can’t exactly blame him, being cooped up in the house day in and day out, sometimes all on his own - Derek knows how that can drive a person crazy, but that just makes him more frustrated out of an imagined sense of fault. If Stiles was with anyone else, if he had been given to any other kind of person, he could be free to actually live instead of stagnating like he is here. 

The both of them find themselves on edge, and neither are very good at controlling it. Stiles jitters about, bouncing off the walls and nearly vibrating right out of his skin. Derek is more of a slow boil, letting everything steep until he snaps and lashes out and leaves the both of them hiding out from each other. It takes Derek three weeks, but eventually, he comes up with a kind of solution. 

The next time he and Stiles have to make the trek for groceries, each time as daunting as the last for some unforeseeable reason, he picks up an extra item - a non-necessity. Stiles doesn’t notice, and he’s glad for it. Though it was his own plan, the very idea of it makes him anxious, and he has no clue how to go about actually setting the whole thing in motion. He has to work himself up to it, and he probably never would be able to if the little android was around questioning him about it, trying to figure out his motives. Curiosity killed the cat, and Stiles was an alley stray if he ever did see one. 

Derek waits for the perfect day, where the both of them are comfortable around each other, where it’s not raining sheets outside, where he’s got a shadow of the courage he used to possess. It’s a drizzly Tuesday. They’ve been mulling over bowls of oatmeal with the gentle patter of morning moisture against the glass. Derek finds it easier to eat when Stiles does too - the both of them doing it for the benefit of the other. It’s been mostly silent, but in an easy fashion, having not much to say, but not feeling like the quiet had to be filled. 

Derek takes one look at the boy across from him, happily tapping his socked feet against the hard wood floor, and banging his spoon against his bowl to some unheard jaunty melody, and he knows it’s time. He stands, without pretense, and holds his hand out for Stiles to take, only more firmly articulating with it when he’s given a questionable look. Stiles takes it, somewhat hesitantly, and then Derek leads them out the back doors, shelters them from the light rain beneath the slight overhang of the roof. He takes the pack of cigarettes from his back pocket, unopened, but crumpled still from having been housed there the last couple days. 

Drawing out one each for them, he mumbles, “It’s a bad habit, but it’s something I’ve always liked. Helps me think.” He hands one over to Stiles, can see the human part of the boy dim as he gets that far off look that means he’s evaluating something. While he waits for Stiles to come back to himself, Derek lights up, takes a deep lungful of the menthol, and holds, only letting it out once the boy turns to him again, brows furrowed. 

“Just try it, you never know.” He touches Stiles’ wrist and lifts the filter to his mouth, waiting until the boy holds it there before withdrawing to flick at his lighter. “Breathe in when I put it to the flame.” Stiles nods, cigarette wobbling in his lips, before concentrating on the tip of it, where the paper is beginning to burn, serious as the grave. His first breath is shallow, and he immediately breathes back out, not coughing and sputtering like most, but instead clearly misunderstanding the concept. 

“You’re supposed to hold it in a while, let the smoke settle in your lungs.” Derek shakes his head, more out of a peculiar fondness than anything else, and takes another drag of his own, demonstrating the proper duration, loving the thrill the nicotine sends jolting through his body. He wonders if the chemicals will affect Stiles at all - probably not - but still, he knows people who just go through the motions, like with the electric contraptions, and that was enough. 

Stiles nods, tries again, but he’s paying more attention to Derek’s reaction than what he’s actually doing. “This is meant to be soothing, intimate. You’re trying too hard. Let go.” Derek turns to look out into the trees, focusing on his own cigarette and hoping it will encourage Stiles to give it the pause it’s intended to be. Smoking breaks were a pause on life for him, that moment just after you’ve inhaled, a time where you can just focus on the simplicity of the act. 

They stay out there long enough to each have an additional smoke before Derek ushers them back inside. Stiles seemed to only marginally understand it more, but he figures that that too will come with time. He can’t help the small amount of encouragement that he offers up, trying to quell the bit of guilt he can see Stiles harboring. “One day at a time.” It figures the one thing he gives back to Stiles would actually be considered bad for him.

Perhaps he can teach the purpose of it while he goes about the mechanics of smoke rings, the difference between brands and flavors, the reasoning behind only having two a day. Even if Stiles never truly gets it, Derek is glad that he made the effort. 

It’s the first piece of him that he’s willingly shared with someone since, and it feels like a load off his shoulders. 

~~~

Communication between the two of them can be a bit tricky. 

At first, Derek’s notepad had seemed like an efficient and quietly brilliant fix, but quickly it became a source of never-ending agitation for the both of them. They get flustered, Derek raging at Stiles and then having to wait while he furiously scribbles out his reply, most of it illegible, and the tapping of Stiles’ impatient foot as he tries to decipher the chicken scratch bringing them closer to the edge. They have to buy ten or more every time they go to the store, and Stiles’ makeshift recycle bins in the house are always overflowing with the crumpled up sheets. 

It doesn’t take long for them both to realize it’s not working, but it’s Stiles who comes up with the solution. One night there’s a power outage and they take refuge in the lookout - where light from the moon makes it so that they’re not tripping over everything, bruising their bodies and pride fumbling in the dark. Stiles sits down on his bed, tucking his legs in and patting the empty space next to him. 

Derek eyes him suspiciously, not unused to Stiles’ particular brand of trickery that often results in mind-numbing levels of embarrassment while the kid tries to comfort or take care of him in increasingly ridiculous ways. At the desperate look in his eyes, the brief glitch of glowing amber, he trudges over, throwing himself down on the sheets and looking up at the android with a look of resignation. He has no idea when he started giving in so easily, but it’s probably going to be the death of him. 

Stiles grins, always so genuine, and scoots down the bed so that he’s level with Derek’s torso. He raises a finger - silencing the question on Derek’s lips - and tears a piece of paper out of his notebook, heavily smudged, having been waiting for the right time to deliver. ‘I think I can teach you sign language.’ Derek raises a skeptical eyebrow, can feel a chuckle building, but pushes it all down when he sees the hope clear on Stiles’ face. 

He looks back at the paper, pushes himself up to sit, and turns to Stiles again. “Are you sure?” The boy nods enthusiastically, tamping down his enthusiasm when it only earns him a glare. “I don’t know…” Derek tenses up, knowing that Stiles is just trying to make things easier on the both of them, but he still feels like this is a test, one that there’s a very real possibility of failing. The other boy has given so much of himself, so readily offers it up, and what if he can’t even give back this one simple thing?

He doesn’t realize he’s drifted into worry until there’s another piece of paper being waved in front of his face, Stiles making what he probably assumes are a facsimile of puppy eyes beside him, always unknowingly over-exaggerating his attempts at expression. ‘We’ll take it slow. One day at a time.’ Derek - he almost… smiles – forces himself to keep it down, but buries his face in his hands just in case. “Fine, fine, fine!”

He can feel Stiles bouncing around on the bed, decides to wait out his excitement and see if the boy will tire himself out a little bit before they start in. It’s a solid three minutes of victory celebration before Stiles pulls his hands away from his face, keeps them, places them in his lap. Derek swallows thickly, aware that the android has thrown that switch, that he is all seriousness now. 

Stiles doesn’t let him have his hands back, instead mouthing, ‘the alphabet’, before pressing his fingers into each desired shape, holding it out, comparing it to his own. They move all the way through the letters, motions starting to accompany shapes the further they work in, and Derek can already feel himself getting lost. He tries to hold back the panic as they make it to the end and all he can remember is z and the hook of j. 

He’s just about to pull away, make an excuse or maybe just get angry for no reason and perform a tactical retreat, when Stiles starts all over again. Pausing when they circle back to c, he shares a look with Derek, smiles small and sweet, runs his fingers along Derek’s with just the barest pressure. Together, they exhale, and try again. For hours Stiles works with him, for once just as patient as he needs to be, as always never demanding a single thing. 

By the end of the night, Derek knows how to sign his own name and Stiles’ and get most of the letters if given enough time to mull them over. He’s proud of himself, proud of what he’s accomplished, and for the first time in a long time, feels like he’s really come somewhere since his self-exile. He signs ‘Thank you’ and then takes the time to spell out ‘One day at a time.’ when Stiles gives another of his one-sided hugs. 

~~~

Cooking is something they can do together, something that they both already know and feel comfortable in. 

If Derek were a different sort of person, a sappier sort of person inclined to believe in and express clichés, aka Stiles, he might say that it gave them a sense of unity, that it symbolized their willingness to give, the ability to heal. He’s started eating almost regularly again, finds himself enjoying the food and sometimes even eager to see what’s next. They weave in and around each other when they work together to make a meal, Stiles still solely in charge of breakfast, but dinner almost always becoming a group affair. 

Signing is still coming slowly, but they’ve developed shortcuts of their own, have gotten able to read intent in each other’s glances, work seamlessly when they need to. They read from the dozens of hand bound cookbooks Stiles had compiled in his head, one night when he was bored, and then printed off at a local copy store while Derek was getting groceries. Neither of them question when this became a thing for them, how easy it was to fall into, how it isn’t any work at all. 

The trips to the store didn’t take long to inspire weekly meetings, discussing what they needed and wanted for the next few days. From there they started plotting out meals, talking about favorite dishes, things they’d always wanted to try (more eclectic and charmingly mundane on Stiles’ side ‘How can Rice Krispie treats be crunchy and gooey at the same time? That doesn’t make sense.’). 

After cooking together, the actual meal is usually silent, but pleasant. They express their opinions on the success of the recipes through non-verbal cues - Derek using pleased slurps and smacks of his lips while Stiles dramatically pats and rubs his stomach, sometimes literally licking his plate clean just to watch Derek roll his eyes. Then it’s outside to share a cigarette, trying to outdo each other with the shapes that they can make, usually devolving into just trying to blow large amounts of smoke into each other’s faces.   
Dessert and dishes are interchangeable, depending on the size of the meal. Stiles washes, Derek dries and puts them away. There may or may not be water and suds fights when Stiles “accidentally” sloshes water over the side of the sink onto Derek’s socks. 

It all serves to wind the both of them down as the sun sinks and evening sets in. They’ve settled into a routine of retiring to the couch - watching whatever’s on TV, reading silently, practicing signing. It’s comfortable. It took them long enough to get there, but it’s still shaky. The rule around it all is to never question anything, to never disturb this precarious house of cards they’ve built. If they start to question what it all means, how they’re affecting each other, where they’re going, it will crash to the ground spectacularly.  
Maybe avoidance isn’t the best tactic, but at the very least they don’t have to lie to themselves.


	5. Finally Free

This… pattern that you and Derek have fallen into, you think that it can be labeled as a kind of domesticity. 

It doesn’t quite fit all of the definitions, most of them saying that it’s a state reached between a couple, people very much in love, but it’s close enough. Plus, you like all the other notions that it brings up. With domesticity comes quiet mornings, easy affection, happy endings. That’s what you want all of this to be, even if that’s not, conventionally, what it’s supposed to be. 

You don’t bring it up with Derek, you know how you have to walk on egg shells around him in this regard. The attraction between the two of you isn’t as electric as it used to be. Not that it’s waned, but rather taken on a different form. Before, you wanted Derek because you were programmed for it, because he was new and fresh, because he was one more puzzle that you had to get your hands on. That’s become so much different now, acquired a depth and complex need that makes it so much greater. 

You still want to get to see those parts of him, but the need to catalogue and discover and know have lost that clinical edge. You don’t want it because it’s part of the other, the parts of you that you shy away from. You want to have these things because it would mean Derek has let you in, has desired the same things, has seen you not as a tool, but as a companion.  
You know that this isn’t something that you can take or force, that, with him, it might not even be something you can ask for, but you’re more than willing to wait, to just continue to try. You don’t make any advances - try to keep your touches and looks and words careful. He sees that you’re holding something back, you’re sure of it, but hasn’t chosen to act on it or even acknowledge its existence. It can make your time together uncomfortable sometimes, can set the both of you on edge and spark an argument. Sometimes it’s frustrating, but mostly it just makes you feel that terrible melancholy. Over history, many humans have described it as a kind of heart sickness, and though it’s wildly inaccurate, you’re inclined to agree with the name. 

You get what you can out of the moments you share. When he lights up, you wonder what it would be like to share his air, to curl around his tongue and lips the way the smoke does, to be as addictive as the nicotine beneath his fingers. When he cooks, you imagine being the object of his attention - brought to heat, tended and season, sampled over and over and when you are just right - devoured. When he signs, you envision his hands making a new language across your skin. ‘I love you’ is the digging of fingertips into your jaw. ‘I want you.’ has nails scraping down your back, lust seeping out their trail. ‘I need you’ is when palms rest on your hips, cradling. 

Tonight, it is harder to keep it at bay than usual. It’s been one of the rare moments when all the clouds have cleared from the sky and the stars are shining bright against the midnight blue of their canvas. Derek had hurried you inside the lookout when he noticed it, set up his telescope, and asked you to bring up maps of the constellations. Together you’ve been searching them out, making a game of it. You don’t use the alien brain so the odds are evened, so you have to hunt just as studiously as Derek and look for the shapes and patterns imagined overhead. 

It has the both of you almost-smiling and jostling each other for turns at the telescope - one of those instances where everything between the both of you is easy and uncomplicated. For this quiet, little moment, neither of you are broken or set apart, fitting just perfectly in the world that you have created together. It makes you feel like you’re out of yourself, watching it all from this lofty, tranquil place. It’s that feeling referred to as “floating on cloud nine.” You’d never quite understood the expression until just now. 

You don’t want it to stop, want this to be the life that you and Derek share, want this slice of domesticity. It goes against everything you’ve been telling yourself, all the careful planning you’ve done, but in this second you cannot deny yourself just this one little gesture; and so you place a hand on Derek’s shoulder, turn him to face you, and press your lips against the corner of his mouth, soft and sweet and slow and short. You can tell that you’ve caught him off guard by the way he stiffens, but take it as a good sign when he doesn’t pull away, lets you nose across his cheekbones to place another peck against his temple. 

Not wanting to push your luck, you pull back after that, closing your eyes to guard yourself against whatever reaction he might have. While you wait for it, you wonder at how it’s still possible to feel his skin beneath your lips even when it’s not there, how you imagine you can feel the beat of his heart alongside yours. It’s miraculous, this electricity coursing through you. At once you want to squirm out of your skin but also sit inside this bundle of lit up nerves, feeling every sound and touch and taste amplified tenfold. 

It’s been exactly 13.675 seconds since you kissed him, when you feel fingertips pressing against your eyelids, and you can’t help the stuttered breath that you release at the sensation. Slowly, you let your eyes flutter open, following their behest, and are met with the endless green of Derek’s own - that particular shade of seafoam that puts the rest of the colors on this Earth to shame. They are searching your face, never staying too long on any one part, but never shifting away from you. 

You finally have his sole attention, and it’s almost too much. Your lips tremble into a weak semblance of a smile and you can’t handle it, have to let your head hang, press your brow down onto his shoulder and get away from all the things that gaze could mean. A hand comes up to run through your hair, gentle but firm, giving you just the space of a second, before pulling your head back up. 

You close your eyes again, well and truly petrified for only the second time in your short life. That first time, you were terrified of the darkness, of not being able to see and know, but this time, you hide in it, take refuge in the deprivation. The hand comes down from your hair, around your neck, against your throat, become fingers gripping your chin and lifting it high. You feel his breath first, ghosting across your top lip in huffs, tickling your skin and sending a thrill down your spine. Then the tip of his nose slides against the length of yours, stopping between your eyes, giving way to a pause so pregnant you’re choking on it. And then, finally then, his lips press against your left eye, dry, scratching, but caring. 

A whimper bubbles up out of your throat as it feels like that single point of connection has been set aflame, growing hotter with every second. You bring your own hands up to the front of his shirt, holding on for dear life, unconsciously pulling him closer. His free hand settles on your hip, pushes you back, makes you stumble backwards, hitting the edge of the bed and letting yourself go down. 

When you bounce on the mattress, your eyes fly open, and at the sight of Derek crawling over you, eyes searching out all the places of you that he has just received permission to travel, you feel yourself glitch. Your ears and cheeks burn - you are mortified like you never have been and your stomach drops out. This was the worst of moments to remind him, to remind yourself, that you’re not real. You’re lines of code downloaded to this artificial frame, and Derek - Derek’s more human than anyone. You feel like you’re going to be sick. 

You noticed, that first day, the disgust that Derek felt when Peter had told him of your uses, that you not only had the capacity, but the inclination to be taken as a lover. You feel like you can’t breathe, can’t force yourself to swallow. Derek had wanted something true, had been looking for something pure, and you’ve just reminded him - at his most vulnerable - that that’s not something you can be. Your eyes start to prick, hot tears gathering, and you have to bite your fist to keep from making a sound. 

Derek - he’s still hovering just above you, eyes still searching, and you can’t get an accurate read. You don’t know what that expression on his face could be, have never seen it before. His legs straddle your stomach and he sits back on them, pulls up so that his arms aren’t supporting him. This is it, you think, this is the start of the steady withdrawal that’s bound to happen. And then - he signs. 

‘One step at a time.’ 

Your eyebrows knit it confusion, you pull your hand away, moving to sign, but you don’t know what to say. He places his hands over yours, saving you from having to flail and babble, and he pushes them down until they’re above your head, wrists crossed, leaving you open. He scoots back, leans down, and kisses you. 

It’s the first time your lips touch, questioning. You’re still in a kind of shock and for the first few seconds it’s just his lips moving against yours, but he coaxes you back to awareness, makes you push back, and soon enough you’re mewling beneath him, delighted, curious, hungry. His tongue glides across the seam of your mouth, looking for more, and you let him have it, let him in to take whatever he needs. 

His hips undulate, grind down into your own, and you gasp, arch into them, strain against his hold. He chuckles against your mouth, rolls them again, and pulls back to scrape his teeth along your jaw. After that, he lets go of your wrists, hands eager to roam across your chest, your stomach, pushing down into the waistband of your pants. 

It’s all so much to take in at once - the sensations of him against you, the sounds of his breathing and stuttering heart, the tastes of his lips and tongue, the smell of his hair and skin. You were built to process information at an alarming rate, to be able to sift through data fast as a super computer, but this is threatening to overload. 

You can’t take it all in, can’t possibly get a grip on it all. You can feel your eyes burning bright, your body is wracked with spasms, and you wonder if you would have the misfortune to be defective in this area, if the cost of your consciousness was the inability to have this. Surely it’s the only explanation for how you feel ready to burst, for why there’s a pressure building inside you that’s threatening to rip you apart. 

You want to scream, want to let it out somehow, but you can’t. You’re scrabbling at Derek’s back, pulling at his hair, gripping him tight with your legs. You can’t - you can’t - you can’t - you have to let go. You… explode. There’s no other way to explain it. Every muscle in your body pulls taut, straining, your heart thunders and then stops, and that low pressure bursts, throwing flames across your whole frame. It lasts the space of a second, this supernova, and then you break back down, collapsing in on yourself.

You tremble and ache and are more raw than ever before. You feel as though you’ve literally crash landed, but somehow you’ve never been happier. Derek’s still got you caged beneath him and you curl up into it, pressing kisses to his throat. He’s whispering to you, things that are forgotten as soon as they are thought over. They are called “sweet-nothings” and they are the penultimate gesture of contentedness. It makes you feel warm and liquid tranquil - suspended. 

Broken never felt so good. 

~~~

From then on, there’re more good days than bad, more easy times than hard, more nights spent shared than alone. 

The both of you are happiest when you can forget what came before, when the house seems less like a haunting and more like a sanctuary, though neither of you are able to believe that it is anything but a gilded cage. Half of the rooms are still closed off, mausoleums in the middle of the life that you are trying to make. They are an ever-present source of darkness, individual black holes whittling away at the brightness. 

You can see the way that Derek gravitates towards them, how they catch his eye every time he walks past. You think he never would have the strength to move past them on his own, without someone coming in to bring him away, he would stay here with them forever. He has all the entrapments of a sentinel, determined to watch over these makeshift graves until he is called away to be with them. 

You don’t know how to help him with this, can’t bring it up - even acknowledge the presence of the problem. It’s just one more piece of your free-will stripped away, one more fault that you have to live with. The both of you feel better in the lookout, surrounded by the open sky, but kept safe by the shelter of the trees. There, all the rest of it feels a world away. You can pretend that stepping in here is like moving to a different dimension, a space where it can all be better. 

Inevitably, he always goes back. As long as it’s there, he will always be compelled; will be unable to keep himself from it. You can’t possibly imagine what that grief means to him, how it has shaped, blown, burned, and made him into something new, but you know that this kind of dwelling on it just can’t continue, will swallow the both of you whole. You’ve come up with a solution, after dozens of nights spent awake, trying to divine an answer. 

It’s radical, you know, but for a wound as deep as this - a desperate plan calls for desperate measures. You’ve adopted the saying as reassurance that it’s the right thing to do, that when you present the idea to Derek, he’ll understand where it is you’re coming from. At this point, you’re just waiting for the right time, for when he’s ready to leave it all behind, when he’s brave. 

Then, and only then, you’ll tell him that you want to burn it all down. It might seem drastic at first, but you’ve really thought it out, examined it from every angle possible. You don’t want him to look at this as violent, but instead cleansing. Being reborn from the flames is a popular motif in human history and fiction, and you can see the merits of it. 

Burning the place down is the best way for Derek to move past it all. You don’t think that he’d be ever to revisit those rooms, to clean them out and purge the toxicity. There’re too many memories - too many pieces of himself and them. Even trying to would probably set him back, undo all this progress he’s made and you couldn’t stand to see that happen. With this, he could lay the groundwork, drop the match, and leave it to burn clean. 

There’s a ceremony to it, a ritual that has a history for saying goodbye. It’s the send-off of warriors and heroes - those who’ve earned it. 

~~~

It’s been almost a year. 

It’s hard to mark the passage of time, to really notice it slipping by when the weather hardly changes, when they see no one but each other. Peter is the one who brings it up, during one of his monthly calls to make sure that Derek hasn’t let himself wither away in this place. Neither of them had noticed, but when he brings it up you share a glance, and smile. 

Even now it’s tentative, but growing familiar. When Derek hangs up, he crosses over to you, pulls you close and kisses you deep. Your eyes glitch, but you don’t hide it anymore. There’s something you’ve never seen before written on Derek’s face and you quirk an eyebrow at him, swat at his shoulder. Chuckling, he brings up his hands, and signs, ‘I love you.’ 

It’s usually one of the first gestures that people learn when studying sign language, but you never taught it to Derek, didn’t want to assume that he’d need to use it. It sounds silly when you think about it, sometimes, but back when you first started, things had always been so tentative, you were still trying to just keep it all from falling apart. Here, now, learning this fact- that Derek looked it up all by himself, searched out this way to tell you - you can’t hold back the hundred watt smile, the bone-crushing hug, the peppering of kisses that follow. 

It’s time. 

~~~

Flames and smoke climb out of every window, the smoke disappearing into the eerie pink of the clouds- tinted by the setting sun. Carried with it all are the things that most people would think you needed, the items that humans have convinced themselves are necessary to make a life. The house, and everything inside is being consumed, remade, left behind. Thing is, you didn't need any of them in the end. Derek's standing next to you, stoic as ever, and he's the only thing you could have possibly thought to bring. There aren't any tears shed, though the atmosphere is heavy. Burning this place down, letting it have all those twisted fragments, it's finally gonna set the both of you free.

You turn to Derek, search out his attention, grab his hand. He hasn't said a word, not since you calmly suggested the arson while you shared a smoke out back. You're worried about what this might mean, but you had no part in the destruction save for the idea of it. You told him it was his house, his memories, his pain, only he could know how to set it to rest. He'd sat stock still, for a few minutes - eyes and mind far off - and then started about the dark business with an unexpected level of concentration. There's gasoline in the garage, lighters from your cigarettes. He unlocks and disappears into the bedrooms, probably for the first time since the death of their occupants, but doesn't stay long, isn't deterred.

You can make out the Polaroid's stuffed in his back pocket, can see the outline of a small jewelry box in his jacket, and are glad he actually kept some mementos. There can't be any regret from it if this is to be the rebirth you want from it. When the glass shatters and the flames feed higher, brighter, hotter, Derek pulls you close. His hands constantly travel the length of your torso, come up to brush along your neck. It's as if, every few seconds, he has to remind himself that you are still there, that he didn't leave you with everything else inside. Or perhaps to even make sure that you're actually there, not some fever dream from a man turned mad.

You press kisses to his temple, entwine your fingers, bump shoulders just to let him know that you're there. Eventually he faces you, brings you further away from the crackling heat. He smiles, sadly, but genuine. 'It's funny. I don't even feel bad.' He shrugs, looking back at the house and furrowing his brows. 'It's... different from how I see it in my memory. I feel like I'm burning something completely separate, setting the real thing free.' As if to illustrate his point, the wood groans, a terrible sound, like a dying specter.

It takes hours, the smoke eventually growing too thick to stick around. You stay with him and watch, until you can notice the struggle it takes for him to draw breath. You usher him away, to the path the both of you take into town. With luck, the local bed and breakfast will be open still, and the owner won't question why you're both covered in soot, followed by an acrid cloud of smoke. The walk is silent as ever, but it's hand in hand. You cannot sing for him, still, and probably never will, but you make do. It takes a few seconds to get right, but you test your vocal chords, trick them into letting you hum.

It's not speech, so you convince the order embedded in your mind to let you have it. You'd gotten the idea that first night Derek had you, when you made noise for the first time since Peter shut that part of you away. It was unconscious, but still allowed, and since then you've been pushing forward, making squeaks and grunts and going further each day. You are happy for your diligence because now, now Derek's eyes lighten up, as does his step, and he looks at you with such wonder and fondness that you lose your place in the melody, instead producing random, haphazard notes and smiling so wide your cheeks start to hurt.

You tug on his hand, pull him to a stop, suddenly eager to say something, to share this elation that is filling you up. Elation - the kind of happiness tightly interwoven with relief, a kind of enlightening. 'You make me feel alive.' You squirm in place when you sign it, always incapable of holding still beneath the full focus of Derek's attention. You hope that he understands the full meaning of that, that when you say it, it means something different from what it would coming from a human. It means that he makes you forget all your limitations, all the things you don't have, all the shackles that come with being an android. You don't have any family like he did, you don't have a past - better times, you don't have old traditions and wisdoms and stories. You are incomplete. All you have is him, but that's so much more than it appears to be. Because when you're with him, you don't think about all the things that are missing. When you're with him, there isn't anything else you could want. Just being there - it is enough.

The look on his face, when he lets it sink in, when he catches some inkling of your meaning, is something close to pained. Pained, in so many instances, has only bad connotations, but here, this one time, you know that it can't be. 'Stiles - you have more life than anyone I've ever known... You gave me mine back.' This might be the most you two have ever shared, the deepest beneath the surface you can manage to delve. It's hardly three sentences, but there's just SO much there. For the both of you, this relationship was built on all the silences between, on the things left unsaid, on the smallest of gestures and actions and a silent knowing. There were no grand declarations, no sweeping romantic gesticulations, no whirlwind adventures to get caught up in. They just… grew together, clung to each other, fought against the current and survived. 

So what if you’re not the kind to be constantly spouting 'I love you?', to have to reaffirm your affections first thing in the morning and after breakfast, during the lunch hour and the commute home, and again at night. So what if there's more shoving and tackling, playful wrestling and jabbing than hugs and lingering touches? It’s so easy to get caught up in the appearance of things, the expectations and imaginings, instead of what’s real. The point is that whatever you have, even if it's not what most people would expect, is true. You don't know what's ahead, where to go from here, but you don't have to. You're starting over, one step at a time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Many, many thanks to my beta, the lovely [guessthatswhoiam-dealwithit](http://guessthatswhoiam-dealwithit.tumblr.com/), who so valiantly volunteered for the position once I whined and complained for two days straight on my tumblr. :P You were such a sweetheart and just wonderful. Also! Props to my kind and understanding artist [amoralambiguity](http://amoralambiguity.livejournal.com) who stoicly dealt with my first-timer's antics. They were patient and kind and really helped me through, all while creating the wonderful art for my story. :)
> 
> If you made it here, to the end, I LOVE YOU! Thank you so much for taking the time to read my story! I do so hope that you enjoyed it and found it all worthwhile. ^^


	6. Artwork

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Art for the story by amoralambiguity.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Find her [here](amoralambiguity.livejournal.com) and [here](campfiretreat.tumblr.com)

 


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